April 6,2020
10:26am
“Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful,
enkindle in them the fire of thy Divine love, send forth your Spirit, and it
shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.”
Divine Mercy of Jesus, I trust in you.
Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
St. Padre Pio, pray for us.
***
Yesterday was a super packed day with spiritual
nourishments. I listened to the recording of
Father J. Syquia on Discipleship and Suffering. Then at almost 2pm we
joined in the Community Conference with our faith group. Then a listened to a
youtube video recording of Pastor Rick Warren.
Not in one go but distributed throughout the day.
The girls had their cp use with hopefully comfortable
breaks to rest their eyes as we tried to gently remind them.
Early evening, Marina and I had 2 movie runs of her
Mystery movie and my Kendrick Movie of the War Room.
I hope to share some of them in the coming days.
Yesterday was Palm Sunday. I was encouraged to be a warm
palm frond to welcome Jesus in my life always.
Today, is garbage disposal day. It is fun to see the garbage trucks do their rounds. Havent really seen them in action till now.
I hope to unload a bit of
my learnings I received yesterday so as not to choke on them nor be a stagnant
water like the dead sea.
So to whomsoever wishes to listen…my best wishes and
prayers that Holy Week be a fruitful and meaningful one for you and your
love ones.
TRANSCRIPT OF FATHER JOCIS SYQUIA’S SHARING:
Good day everyone. I would like to start this talk with a
prayer to Our Lady. In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Dear Mama Mary, please be with us in a very special way,
in these moments, cover us with your mantle of love and protection. Cover all
of those listening to this reflection, that we may be able to experience the
inspirations and consolations that can only come from thy Son. We also ask you
for those who have perished to cover them with your love. Protect us from the
Evil one and grant us the intercession that the Lord’s will be done. We pray
dear Mama Mary, for your intercession, for our country and for each and
everyone of us. Holy Spirit, may we be able to experience the Lord’s working in
our lives.
Dear St. Michael, we ask you also, in a very special way
to intercede for us and also our patron saints and guardian angels during this
short recollection, that all that we do may be pleasing to our Lord, and be for
the salvation of souls.
May all glory and praise be to Our God.
In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The topic I would like to reflect on is the topic on
Discipleship and Suffering. Specially now in our present situation, unprecedented
one . I would like to go through how a Catholic
Christian should act/behave and to better understand the situation going
on, with the eyes of faith, so that we may be able to respond, as Jesus would
respond to this type of situation, especially today, we are called to be
extentions of Jesus, especially in this world.
First and foremost, I would like to start with the human
condition, we know that God has given us
freedom, it is important, very important, that with true freedom we are able to
love. Important to note that God took a risk in this freedom, because man can
say yes to love, or no to love, and therefore, many have chosen to say yes, but
sadly many have also chosen to say no.
Therefore, because of freedom, people who have said no to God, especially our
first parents, have said no to the love
of God, and sin have entered into the world, through the instigation of the devil
therefore, sin, which is an abuse of freedom, has now brought about the
suffering we are now experiencing, sicknesses we are now experiencing today…(inaudible)
We have to understand as Catholics, as Christians, that
the greatest evil is not suffering, sickness nor death. For Jesus himself
experienced all these. All the greatest saints experienced these. Precisely why
they became saints because of these encounter with difficulties.
The greatest evil actually is sin. Therefore, the
greatest tragedy today is that man is focused, sometimes too much, on
eradicating suffering and death, and not eradicating sin. We have to be very
clear about that, sometimes even in our prayers, we focus too much that we may
be delivered from too much suffering from pain, sickness and death. We do not
so much pray in eradicating sin, which is the only one that can cut off a
person from the plan of God, from the eternal reward, that the Lord has
prepared for those who love Him.
That is why it sometimes so sad that a dying person, or
when a person has passed away, people do not anymore ask, was the person
spiritually prepared. Usually people
ask, did he suffer? That becomes the major issue. Did the person suffer?
Forgetting that even the saints, during the moment of their dying, they
experienced a lot of pain. We can be sure that they accepted this pain for the
love of God, in the sense, eradicated the need to be purged in purgatory.
Therefore, suffering is not something that is evil in the eyes of God. It has
become something that is life giving because of Jesus. Sin is so terrible that
it caused the life of God, therefore if we are tempted to treat our sins
lightly and focus more on physical healing, Let us look clearly, and
specifically at the cross of Jesus, for
it is our sings that has sent Jesus Christ to the cross. Therefore, we can
never take sin lightly. Sin is the only thing that is abhorrent to God. Yes,
God loves the sinner, but sin which is totally contradictory to His nature, is
something totally evil in His sight. If sin can do so much to Jesus on the
cross, we can see the consequences of sin in Him, what more could it do to us,
what can it do to us, what could it truly do to us, if we separate ourselves
from the Lord and died, sin can even block us from the protection of God.
I remember in the ministry of exorcism I have been
in, for many years, I experienced this reality , that when people
leave God, they don’t want any
relationship with God, because they want to live their own lives. They remove
the protection of God, therefore, they are left vulnerable, to the attacks of the evil one, to the capriciousness
of nature, they are not protected in any
way because they desire to save themselves.
A question that we can ask ourselves while all of these
things are happening today in the world is this: is this virus, this pandemic a
scourge from God? Of course not. Nothing bad can come from God but He can
permit, bad things to occur for a greater good. Therefore, this experience we
are now experiencing is a sign that man has left the protection of God, man has
allowed himself to drift away from God, He has said no to God’s relationship or call of love
with Him, therefore, with that goes the
protection that God wants to give us with all His heart. If we look at the life
of Judas, the moment he left Jesus, immediately Satan went into him. When
people leave God, they are not left is some kind of a neutral state, or
situation, what happens is that, when we leave God, we become a prey, more
vulnerable to more powerful forces outside of us. These are the fallen angels.
We become prey to this attacks. Satan entered into him. Therefore, this is
something we have to realize, we cannot
ask for the protection of God, and not
desire to have a relationship with Him. To have a deep, intimate love
relationship with Him. Therefore, moral evil, is the real enemy of the
Christian, not suffering, not death, not sickness, all the saints suffered, but
we have become so confused, that we cannot even detect anymore, the real evil,
except in suffering, sickness and death.
My dear friends, although the effect of sin is suffering,
including sickness, pain and death, suffering as mentioned is not something
morally, spiritually evil, even though it may truly repugnant to us.Even though we do
everything as much as possible to get away from it. Diffucult. We can see Jesus
in Gethsemane, asked the Father to take away the cup of suffering, but in the
end, He was able to say yes to this chalice to be drinking. Later on the angels
comforted Him. This is something we can learn about. Something we can apply in
our own lives.
( to be continued)
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